6.15.2018

I used to work for a wilderness therapy outlet for troubled teenagers in remote Ka'u, up at about 1800 feet elevation above Pahala town. The land was about 10 acres, surrounded by active farm/pasture land (former cane fields) and we had what appeared to be a nearby burial site -- lava rock cairns, three of them, in a beautiful bamboo stand (we would actually send kids there for their final mission, a three day solo camp with fasting -- heavy). On that edge of camp kids reported seeing lights, "aliens", etc. Probably just old ghosts. Many of these kids were in different groups, had never talked to one another, but had similar reports. The kids who occupied the little hale along the edge of the land there didn't like it - chicken skin - they had to face the camp and I think they often felt serious mana behind them on the path that went along the fence behind their hale.

Most of the property was covered with permaculture garden beds with little open-sided hales sprinkled throughout. We were totally off grid. Pitch black at night. We had one main bunkhouse on the Kona side of the land, and a big open-sided elevated hale in the middle. Our typical routine was to sleep two staff up in the big hale (for one kine break, not to be around farting teenagers) and two staff in the bunkhouse.

One night was really stormy, AND we had a kid coming in who was a serious flight/violence risk -- they often came in at night, if they were being escorted here against their will, which was often. The staff decided three staff in the bunkhouse would be safer, and that the remaining single staff person would sleep alone on the elevated platform hale. I drew the short straw on that one.

I managed to fall asleep buried deep in my sleeping bag despite sideways Kona winds and heavy rain. In the middle of the night, I was awoken to what sounded like someone loudly barking "HEY YOU!" at me, maybe a foot or two away from my ear. I woke up with a crystal clear vision in my head of an angry heavy-set Hawaiian man, long hair tied back, only wearing a loincloth or small skirt of some kind of tapa-like material. I scrambled in the dark for my headlamp but no one was there. My heart was pounding out of my chest. As I sat bolt upright there in the dark, freaking out but justifying in my head that it was a vivid dream, I began to hear voices coming in from the west on the wind. The rain had stopped but the Kona winds were still blowing. It was women's voices speaking Hawaiian. Again, I had a crystal clear vision in my head as I heard this - two or three Hawaiian women sitting on a hala mat, pounding poi or something, chatting. The bunkhouse nearby was locked and silent.

I had never before experienced something like this, and never have since. Though I didn't "see" a ghost, per se, it was the closest thing I have had to a supernatural experience. A co-worker who had been there for years told me to carry some turmeric in my pocket (to ward off spirits?) and told me she had seen plenty of lights and weird things on the property. The land had been used for centuries by kanaka and maybe they just wanted to let us haoles know this was still their space. I have a deep respect and love for Hawaiian culture and the mana on the Big Island is the most powerful thing I have ever felt.